Pro’s
- L-Carnitine shown to improve cognition and reduce fatigue
- Bacopa Monnieri is a key nootropic ingredient
- Phosphatidylserine proven to boost memory and reduce cognitive decline
- No Proprietary Blends – so you can see the exact dosages of each ingredient inside
Con’s
- St John’s Wort shown to cause numerous side effects
- DMAE shown to be teratorgenic (cause birth defects in unborn babies)
- Huperzine A can also cause numerous side effects
See Your Best Options In Our
– Top 3 Nootropics Page –
About The Product
Neuro-Peak is a Nootropic supplement made by Zhou Nutrition. It costs $34.99 on their website for 30 serving containers, with a serving size of 2 capsules per day.
This is a good daily serving size, as it’ll make sure the effects last long enough for when you need it the most – during work or exams etc.
Who are Zhou Nutrition?
Zhou Nutrition are a supplements company that focus on making vegetarian-ready products. Neuro-Peak is their most popular supplement, but they also market testosterone boosters and join support products.
But we’re here to examine Neuro-Peak, so let’s see what’s inside below.
Neuro Peak Ingredients Explained
Neuro-Peak contains 9 ingredients in total, which is a good number to have a nootropic. We’re glad that Zhou Nutrition hasn’t hidden any ingredients in proprietary blends – meaning we can see the exact dosages of ingredients inside, so this gets them good points from us.
For those that don’t know what proprietary blends are, we’ll give you a quick summary in a green box below (if you know, then skip this box).
Proprietary blends are mixtures of numerous ingredients that are shown to you under a fancy title and 1 overall quantity – meaning you don’t know the dosage of each ingredient inside.
These blends are bad, as you don’t know how effective each ingredient is, if you don’t know the amount of it inside a supplement; you should know that each ingredient has different optimal dosages, so it’s important to know whether they’ll work – or even cause any side effects.
We can forgive supplement companies that mistakenly add potentially harmful ingredients, if they show you the dosage inside. But we hate companies that add potentially harmful ingredients into proprietary blends – as this increases the risk of side effects and can seriously harm someone.
We’ve just praised this nootropic for not containing any proprietary blends…however, Neuro-Peak contains some ingredients known for causing side effects – especially St John’s Wort, which we try to avoid as it’s shown to cause side effects such as depression and anxiety in numerous studies.
Anyway, we’ll take you through each ingredient inside Neuro-Peak – to show you how effective this nootropic really is.
Here’s Everything You Need To Know:
St John’s Wort
This is a wild plant that’s been used for centuries to improve general health. However, this has recently shown to cause severe depression (which has even led to suicide in some cases).
For this reason, we can’t recommend that you consume any supplement containing St John’s wort.
DMAE
DMAE is a molecule believed to improve your cognition. However, numerous studies have shown that DMAE can be teratogenic (meaning it can cause defects in unborn babies).
This is a side effect you should avoid at all costs, so we can’t recommend you to take any supplement containing DMAE either.
L-Carnitine
L-Carnitine is one of our favorite pre-workout ingredients, but it’s not as effective in a nootropic. Simply put, it’s main benefit is reducing fatigue (which makes it useful in pre-workout supplements).
However, while it offers small improvements in focus, there are better ingredients you can find in Nootropic supplements (such as Lion’s Mane Mushroom).
L-Glutamine
Glutamine is a amino acid that’s beneficial to vegetarians, as you can get this naturally in meat. However, it’s not needed in a nootropic supplement like Neuro-Peak – as it doesn’t benefit everyone, it’s ineffective to those that aren’t vegetarians.
Lion’s Mane Mushroom has shown to significantly improve mental performance in numerous studies? Unfortunately, it’s not part of Neuro-Peak – but it’s contained in our favorite nootropic supplements – which you can see here.
Phospatidylserine
This is a fat-soluble compound that’s found in high amounts in your brain, and is proven to boost cognition in dosages of 300mg daily. However, Zhou Nutrition has under-dosed this in Neuro-Peak; they’ve only added 125mg per daily serving.
However, we like that they haven’t underdosed this on purpose, as they haven’t hidden it in a proprietary blend. Everyone makes mistakes now and then, and we hope Zhou Nutrition read this and improve their formula.
Ginkgo Bilboa
This herb hasn’t been researched much, so it’s not very reliable. However, it’s believed to improve your brain health – which is why Zhou Nutrition has added this into Neuro-Peak.
Not only that, the few studies show that it’s effective in dosages of at least 120mg; as Neuro-Peak only contains 50mg, it’s not likely to work here.
Vinpocetine
This is extracted from the periwinkle plant and is believed to improve your cognition; studies have shown it might boost your memory in dosages of 40mg or above. However, there’s only a tiny 2mg in Neuro-Peak, meaning it’s almost certain to be ineffective here.
Bacopa Monnieri Extract
Finally, another key nootropic ingredient. Bacopa Monnieri is one of our favorite ingredients in these types of supplements, as it’s shown to improve your memory and focus – 2 key reasons why we’d buy nootropics.
But here’s the problem: it’s only shown to work in dosages of at least 300mg – as there’s only 100mg in Neuro-Peak, it’s not likely to work here. Ultimately, this is a great example of why dosing ingredients optimally is important.
Huperzine A
This is believed to improve your cognition, but there’s not been enough studies conducted on Huperzine A to make it reliable. Not only that, it’s been reported to consistently cause numerous side effects in supplements it’s contained in.
For this reason, we recommend avoiding supplements that contain this ingredient – there are safe and effective ingredients, to there’s no need to consume any that can cause side effects.
Not only that, Huperzine A has only shown to work (in the few studies it has), in dosages above 50mg – as there’s only 10mg in Neuro-Peak, there’s no chance of it working here.
See Your Best Options In Our
– Top 3 Nootropics Page –
Side Effects
There are 3 ingredients that are likely to cause side effects in Neuro-Peak – St John’s Wort, DMAE, & Huperzine A. The worst side you might suffer are from St John’s Wort and DMAE (as we’ve mentioned, St John’s Wort has been involved in controversy before, making people severely depressed).
However, the side effect by DMAE is also severe; it’s shown to be teratogenic in studies conducted on it (meaning it can cause birth defects in unborn babies). Include Huperzine A, which has shown to cause numerous other side effects, and you should be put off taking Neuro-Peak – we definitely were.
For this reason, we recommend that products containing these 3 ingredients, but especially St John’s Wort and DMAE.
Here’s the potential side effects from taking Neuro-Peak:
- Increased Blood Pressure (St John’s Wort)
- Severe Depression (St John’s Wort)
- Rapid Heartbeat (St John’s Wort)
- Diarrhea (St John’s Wort & Huperzine A)
- Teratogenic – birth defects in unborn babies (DMAE)
- Nausea (Huperzine A)
- Cramping (Huperzine A)
Neuro-Peak Review Conclusion
It’s a shame that Zhou Nutrition added 3 potentially harmful ingredients into Neuro-Peak, as it contains 2 of our favorite nootropic ingredients (phosphatidylserine & Bacopa Monnieri).
Not only that, usually nootropics contain useless ingredients, so we were happy to see Zhou Nutrition at least included ingredients associated with improved cognition; such as L-Carnitine. Finally, we always give companies credit for not including any proprietary blends in their supplement – this is a sign of a honest company that don’t hide behind lies.
However, we can’t recommend that you try Neuro-Peak, due to it containing St John’s Wort (which has led to serious depression in some cases).
[wp-review]
Here’s the best natural nootropic supplements on the market for:
- Improved Focus
- Enhanced Memory
- Increased Productivity
- Raised Attention Span
